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Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Steaminess in Books - thoughts & cake

Steaminess........ What exactly is considered Erotic? or Adult? or New Adult? or Young Adult? Do you know?

I mean, I've just quit trying to find anything I want to read at the library. There's a new library that moved in just down the street from me, but I can't stand how it's organized and it's really throwing me off. Sometimes the books I want are upstairs in the children's loft, under Middle Grade. Sometimes they're in the Teen nook. But sometimes they're off the adult Sci-Fi shelves... and usually they're shipped in from a different library with various other classifications on their binding. It's so confusing.

Right now I'm reading Shana Abe - I read The Sweetest Dark, which doesn't come out 'til April, but I'd stumbled upon a preview on Edelweiss last summer when they were thinking of publishing it last summer (????) so they let me read it... and it's so hauntingly beautiful, I was totally stunned that I'd never read her books before.

But, now having read (and sweated over) The Smoke Thief, I understand. It's definitely ADULT romance, which I don't venture to read very often. As far as I'm concerned, it's pretty erotic. Lol. But I don't ever read that, so I have no idea. The Sweetest Dark must be YA, then... maybe a new venture into something more innocent for her.

I don't know.

I guess it doesn't really matter, except I know how steamy my book is and I'm not crossing into adult regardless of how much older my characters are from teenagers, but......... it's something to think about.

My writing... *lip twitches uncontrollably* is rather.... um.......... well, it got out of hand. that's what. Turns out, I got to my grand finale and the whole thing EXPLODED into Part 2. I mean, I knew I was sort of pushing it with my finale, that it had some hidden treasures. But I did NOT expect a full-blown story. The beauty of it is... it's a mirror to the first half, and I can't help loving it. In fact, I wish I could say I'd planned it like that all along. I haven't actually written any of it...... but it's growing just the same. It's so good......... I hope I can do it half the justice it deserves. *stares bleakly out the window* I am starkly unqualified to even attempt it.

Which brings me to my next thought/question/inner-debate. (Better grab another piece of cake)

I write so casually... on purpose. I mean, I've worked hard to sound so darn nonchalant. And yet, that's not the flavor I wrote my story in and I'm wondering if I just created my voice and then ditched it. It makes me excited to think of writing my book like THIS. Like... ME. And I wonder why it never occurred to me before? And then... I answer myself that it's stupid, that's why. And then I argue that... even the boring parts would be a lot more entertaining if I let some attitude slip through. Which causes a hidden perfectionist inside me to start going into spasms... which, in turn, has me laughing at myself and...

Obviously I'm insane.

This is an excerpt from an email that involved too much steam and chocolate to keep to myself so close to Valentine's Day. Do please help me out here.... librarians? Anyone? How are books classified with regards to STEAM? What are the boundaries?

I find myself gravitating more and more toward YA and away from "steamy" novels these days... not sure why, but I do! I posed your interested question on my blog post today: http://authorjess.blogspot.com/2013/02/whats-up-wednesday-timely-topics.html . Feel free to stop by and check it out!

Was going back through my emails that I haven't had time to go through and saw this post from you. I just picked The Sweetest Dark up this week from NetGalley and I'm really looking forward to reading it, so I'm so glad you like it so far!

Okay. So I have to agree with you about the whole classification thing. I just request all the books I want and I don't even try to find them. Browsing doesn't ever do me much good and gets me frustrated. I also really get frustrated trying to find books on Amazon and Barnes & Noble too when I don't have a specific title in mind. It just seems like they need to put together a council to categorize everything properly.

I also wish they had a clean or fairly clean category. I don't mind steamy (I am married after all and I had no clue before I was married so it was all good), I just don't like crossing the line. I guess for me I don't really like my characters having sex in ya, but if they do I don't want any details. I think books are better when, as a reader, you feel things anyway and there's sexual tension and some great kissing. The books that went over that line for me in YA seem to lack quite a bit of substance in the plot and writing and tend to have characters I don't like. I've read some YA that I felt should have been classified Adult and vice versa, so I don't know how publishers/libraries classify things.

Good luck on finishing your books! I say go with some additional attitude. My favorite books have plenty of snarky in them. ;)

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